I'm writing this post to alert CSH members to this motion (#370) which is on the agenda of the British Medical Association's Annual Representatives' Meeting tomorrow morning, on climate advocacy and divestment from fossil fuel companies. The BMA will be voting on whether or not to divest from the world's major fossil fuel companies. Myself and a couple of others have drafted this 2-page briefing document, and it would be fantastic if you could share it with anyone you know who'll be voting at the meeting.

Should the BMA commit to divestment, this would help set a valuable precedent for other groups, building on the momentum created by the Fossil Free campaign internationally. A 'yes' vote would make the BMA the first ever national medical or nursing organ isation to divest from fossil fuels!

For those on twitter, please take a few minutes to tweet before 11am if tomorrow, using the #ARMlive hashtag and the URL for the briefing (http://tinyurl.com/divestmentbriefing). Below are some example tweets to save you time - though feel free to come up with your own of course!

The briefing document summarises the various arguments - both health-focused and financial - in favour of such a move, as well as giving some wider context (an argument made succinctly by Bill McKibben here, and in Alistair Wardrope's recent blog on the topic for Healthy Planet UK).

Please do get in touch if you're interested in starting up discussions about divestment within organisations you're involved in, such as Royal Colleges or even NHS Trusts, it would be great to hear from you.

The winners of last year's new Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition to find innovative technology based solutions in Kidney Care have been announced on 13th May 2014.

The £3.6 m SBRI funding competition was launched last October by the Department of Health and the National Institute for Health Research Devices for Dignity Healthcare Technology Co-operative (NIHR D4D HTC) to help the 5,000 people diagnosed with kidney failure every year. There are currently 41,000 patients in England receiving treatment for kidney failure.

CSH is thinking about starting a project to 1) look at patient transport in kidney care from both carbon and patient experience points of view and 2) run a pilot project in one hospital. If you have any views or experience in this area, please write in. And, if you think your hospital would be a suitable site for the pilot project, do let me know!

Dialysis treatment for end stage kidney disease is a burden on patients, taxpayers, and the environment. The carbon cost of dialysis is estimated to be seven tonnes CO2 equivalents per year. Although we can make the improvements to reduce this, the ideal is to prevent people from reaching end stage kidney disease.

Tuesday 19th November 2013, 1:00 pm (GMT) / 8:00 am (EST)
Join this webinar with Veolia Water to find out about the growing business risks relating to water use, the need for a pragmatic metric and the benefits for businesses from using water risks assessment together with case studies

This year's Green Nephrology Summit was held at Guy's Hospital in London on 25th September. Once again, we were a good mix of clinicians (docs, nurses, physios), technicians, patients, industry representatives and interested others...

Programme and (first batch) speaker slides from the Green Nephrology Summit 2013, available to download. Dr Hugh Rayner is not able to share his slides, some of which are pending publication, but has recommended the following references instead:

The Department of Health and the National Institute for Health Research Devices for Dignity Healthcare Technology Co-operative (NIHR D4D HTC) are collaborating to launch a new Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition to find innovative technology based solutions in Kidney Care. The focus is on technologies that can make a difference to patients over the whole spectrum of kidney disease ranging from earlier diagnosis and prevention through to treatment of advanced stages of kidney failure. An important goal would be to promote patient empowerment and/or sustainable practices throughout the patient care pathway.

The 2013 Green Nephrology Award (for sustainability initiatives in kidney units) went to joint winners, Bristol Royal Hospital for Children and Bradford Teaching Hospitals. Both kidney units demonstrated significant environmental as well as financial savings, while maintaining the quality of care for dialysis patients.

Joint winners of the 2013 Green Nephrology Awards - Bristol Royal Hospital for Children for a water saving project initiated by Charge Nurse, Dan Speakman, and Bradford Teaching Hospitals for reduction in the use of dialysate through using the "autoflow" facility on dialysis machines.

This is the yearly get-together of the Green Nephrology Network, where ideas and experiences are exchanged for sustainable kidney care. Everyone is welcome. This year's programme covers best practice examples such as laboratory eGFR screening and exercise programmes in CKD, as well as debates on how to get your clinical director on board, building patient networks, and whether to abandon plastic cannisters of acid concentrate in favour of bulk systems.

You can also use these platforms to make contact with others who will be attending the conference, share your ideas, case studies and as a platform for online discussions about sustainable healthcare and how we can get to where we want to be.

The Green Nephrology Summit 2012 participants agreed to issue a position statement about the urgency of sustainable healthcare, with a challenge to policy makers to remove financial/commissioning barriers to efficient, sustainable care systems - including disease prevention and the use of telemed

The Green Nephrology Summit 2012 was held in London on 26th September, organised by the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare and attended by nurses, doctors, technicians, patients, NHS managers, industry representatives, medical students and other interested parties.

The 2012 Awards were open to all kidney units or providers of kidney care in the UK, who were invited to enter one or more local initiatives demonstrating a measurable benefit to the environmental sustainability of kidney care.

The 2012 Awards were open to all kidney units or providers of kidney care in the UK, who were invited to enter one or more local initiatives demonstrating a measurable benefit to the environmental sustainability of kidney care.

Posters presented at a Green Nephrology private reception alongside the BRS/RA meeting in 2010. The reception was co-hosted by National Clinical Director for Kidney Care, Dr Donal O’Donoghue, and the Director of NHS Kidney Care, Beverley Matthews.

Posters presented at a Green Nephrology private reception alongside the BRS/RA meeting in 2010. The reception was co-hosted by National Clinical Director for Kidney Care, Dr Donal O’Donoghue, and the Director of NHS Kidney Care, Beverley Matthews.

Featured in this Network

John Agar and Katherine Barraclough have produced a fantastic review looking at the impacts of environmental change on kidney health as well as the environmental damage caused by kidney services (especially dialysis) and strategies to mitigate this.

A short video introducing the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare's work in supporting clinical specialties to improve sustainability. This video focuses on initiatives in kidney care, where the approach was first pioneered.